green stormwater infrastructure

Boston Parks & Recreation Department

 

Introduction

HW and Brown Richardson and Rowe, have collaborated with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department (BPRD) on the creation of the Green Stormwater Infrastructure Design and Implementation Guide.

This  effort included invaluable contributions from the Boston Water and Sewer Commission (BWSC) and the Trust for Public Land (TPL). We thank BPRD staff for their time, resources, and dedication to this project. The Boston Society of Landscape Architects (BSLA) recognized this project with a Professional Merit Award in Communications in 2021.

 

GSI in Boston Parks

Considered the city’s first GSI project, Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace park system passes through many Boston neighborhoods. Olmsted’s brilliant stormwater management system has connected people to nature for over 100 years and serves as a prime example of the importance of incorporating GSI into parks and vice versa.

The types of properties managed by the BPRD are diverse and vary by scale, use, age, and surrounding contexts and communities. They also represent many things to those communities such as places to gather, play, exercise, recreate, and connect with nature. Such an assorted set of public spaces creates challenges as well as opportunities to create multi-functional parks.

 

5-Steps to a multi-functional park

Based upon information gathered from other municipal agencies throughout the country, the Guide uses a five-step process to assist BPRD staff, partnering city agencies, and park consultants, with the design, implementation, and maintenance of GSI. This will create more resilient, multi-functional parks that maximize benefits to park users and the environment.  

Key steps that help accomplish this goal include: defining and re-defining GSI objectives, identifying the park contexts, understanding the site and the benefits and maintenance requirements of various GSI practices, and leveraging partnerships.

 
 
Collaborative Process

We worked closely with BPRD staff, using information from BWSC and TPL, to prioritize GSI implementation in parks in every neighborhood.  GSI can help reach city-wide environmental and equity goals by improving climate resiliency and livability and health through promoting rainwater reuse and recharge, adapting to increased flooding, reducing urban heat islands, connecting people to nature, increasing green spaces, and improving drainage, water and air quality, and habitat value in parks all over Boston!

 

Click here for an example of a practice page outlining considerations for designing GSI in parks.

  

  

  

 

 

 

improving water quality in our local community

Town of Sandwich, MA
sandwich harbor sw mitigation

Rich Claytor, P.E., and Sam Jensen, P.E., for the Town of Sandwich were featured in an US EPA Soak Up the Rain New England Series webinar entitled Clean Water on the Cape: Green Infrastructure in Sandwich and Yarmouth, MA.

The goal of the Sandwich project is to reclassify the harbor as fully approved for shellfishing. To achieve this, the town and HW staff launched a multi-year Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration effort funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service and CPR FY19 and FY20 grants.

The project led to the design, permitting, and installation of multiple bioretention and linear swale systems along the Town Neck Beach parking lot and Boardwalk Road, as well as three underground infiltration chambers, and four porous pavement and sand filter systems in the surrounding neighborhoods. These stormwater systems not only target bacteria in stormwater runoff from nearby parking lots, roads, and driveways, but also treat nitrogen and other stormwater pollutants, and reduce flooding.

EPA’s Soak Up the Rain is a stormwater public outreach and education program to raise awareness about the costly impacts of polluted stormwater runoff and encourage compliance with stormwater rules and requirements through nature-based solutions such as green infrastructure and low impact development.

Project Partners & Funding: Cape Cod Water Resources Restoration Project, Town of Sandwich, USDA, CZM, Cape Cod Conservation District, State of MA

Image provided by USGS

 Image provided by USGS

   Image provided by USGS